Damn you Lacie!! - New Harddrive suggestion

[uchiha_itachi]

So I turn on my lacie external hard drive this morning, it's the one designed by Porsche, (this one here), and I am met with a blinking orange and yellow light. Slightly strange, investigate further on the net and it seems a common problem with these external drives. Fortunately the hard drive was fine, it seems the PCB on the external enclosure is faulty. As I've had the external drive for over a year, I don't believe there is any warranty left, not that it matters really as I have already voided warranty by opening it up and getting the hard drive out.

So, I can't stick this hard drive in my pc as it's has an ide interface and I have no spare ide slots on mobo, (Asus p5k) and I don't want to continue using it in this icy dock enclosure as it is as noisy as hell. So suggestions please for a new SATA internal drive, and any recommendations on a good external ide enclosure which is as silent as possible?

Much appreciated!

[TooNice]

What capacity? Those two are the quietest tested by StorageReview. Some IcyDock do not use a fan, so that's as quiet as it'll get. Not sure if they have one for IDE drives, but I can't see why not. Needless to say, watch the temperature, but generally speaking, I don't think it's a big issue really.

[uchiha_itachi]

Thanks for that reply TooNice, I was thinking about the 500gb region.

[Funkstar]

These are good:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=465786

I have one already and a second due to be delivered on Monday. It will take your existing drive without any issues. It doesn't have a fan so is as noisy as the drive from the Lacie box.

You could probably reduce the noise further. Most drives have accoustic managment setting in the firmware. If you connect i to your PC temporarily you can change the performance/accoustice settings with some software. Have a hunt about for AAM (Automatic Accoustic Management) software, i believe IBM/Hitachi have some that will work with just about any mke of drive, although most manufacturers also have heir own.

Worth a try

[uchiha_itachi]

That Akasa enclosure seems like a winner. On the scan description page it says you can have dual interface/dual transfer, how does that work, does it connect to the pc through both the esata port and USB? Slighty intrigued at that. Could you let me know how you connect it to your pc Funkstar?

You could probably reduce the noise further. Most drives have accoustic managment setting in the firmware. If you connect i to your PC temporarily you can change the performance/accoustice settings with some software. Have a hunt about for AAM (Automatic Accoustic Management) software, i believe IBM/Hitachi have some that will work with just about any mke of drive, although most manufacturers also have heir own.

Thanks for that info, however the drive I took out of the Lacie is a Seagate, and according to this page the drive might not benefit from using the AAM software as it is already enabled on this particular drive.

As for the internal drive, I think I am gonna go with this one:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=494552

[Funkstar]

That Akasa enclosure seems like a winner. On the scan description page it says you can have dual interface/dual transfer, how does that work, does it connect to the pc through both the esata port and USB? Slighty intrigued at that. Could you let me know how you connect it to your pc Funkstar?

The case take either a SATA or PATA drive. Both internal power and data cable are provided. You can then connect the case to either an eSATA port (or a normal SATA connector with the right cable) or a USB port. There is a switch on the back to select eSATA or USB. Again both cables are provided.

I have mine connected through USB at the moment, but will probably use eSATA once i get a SATA ExpressCard for my laptop.

The possible combinations are:
IDE Drive -> USB
SATA Drive -> USB
SATA Drive -> eSATA

It can't convert an IDE drive to SATA unfortunately, which is a shame, that would have been useful.

[uchiha_itachi]

Just a follow up on this. I bought the Akasa external enclosure this week, but only just got round to installing it tonight. I am really happy with the results. The outer case doesn't feel as quality build in comparison to the icy dock, but it seems to be alot quieter. I suppose the best test would be try the same drive in both. But going on first impressions, think I might get one or two more of these enclosures.

Thanks again for the suggestion Funkstar!

[Funkstar]

I'd agree with you on the build quality. The main body is fine, it's the panel you remove at the back i have my doubts about. Would have prefered it to be metal rather than plastic.

Still works well though. Oh, I do prefer the Akasa power connector over the IcyBox ones. Four nice sturdy pins as opposed to something that looks like a PS2 plug.

[simsim]

I've had the same Porsche Lacie drive die on me too. I managed to used GetDataBack to recover the info - but I wouldn't get one of these again.

[s_kinton]

My mates LaCie 250GB porsche version died last week!

[uchiha_itachi]

I held Lacie in very high regard when it came to external storage drives and optical drives, however after my experience with the porsche drive, as detailed above, along with everyone elses experiences, I'm slightly sceptical about their products. The hard drive itself was undamaged, but the pcb on the external drive is what seemed to have 'crapped out'.

Wont be buying anymore of their products.

[Lee H]

Seagate Freeagent series would be my recommendation. Different versions have different connectivity and they come with a nice long warranty period so they must be extremely confident in their drives.

[peterb]

Must say I like the look of that Akasa housing - might be going on my next Scan order! (when they appear on Today Only! ) The Sumvision housings are very good too - but only IDE.

[uchiha_itachi]

Seagate Freeagent series would be my recommendation. Different versions have different connectivity and they come with a nice long warranty period so they must be extremely confident in their drives.

As good as that may be, I think there is one thing which is putting me off buying external storage drives from companies. If something goes wrong with the drive, its either the hard drive or casing, (or both). And the minute you try to take the hard drive out to eliminate problem or recover data, you lose the warranty. Most external drives are used as backup solutions, mine was, and I just couldn't trust sending the drive back to lacie to try to fix or replace, at the risk of losing the data.

By getting your own pata/sata hard drive and then housing it in a third party enclosure, if one or the other goes faulty you can find out which, and send the relevant hardware back to retailer/manufacturer, (so long as it is within warranty). For me its just a safer scenario, especially considering the type of data being dealt with.